I haven't even heard of Chobot prior to this. All I know is that one screenshot of the character is absolutely horrid looking and it seems like they're trying to shove some supposedly well known female gamer down our throats like they did with Felicia Day in DA2.

I'll admit that it bothers me...just like when X-play has a preview of the next great movie tie in game and the interviewer is all excited about the upcoming game.

But, that is the way the industry works and I've come to accept everything with a grain of salt. Of course Chobot is going to do both - she is an aspiring "something" in the industry. Of course the X-play staff is going to get paid to pretend to be interested in a game that is 99.999% likely to blow and in fact blatantly blows during the preview.

Journalistic integrity came about because society demanded it and society doesn't any more. I mean seriously - look at Fox News?

Aggieknight:I'll admit that it bothers me...just like when X-play has a preview of the next great movie tie in game and the interviewer is all excited about the upcoming game.

But, that is the way the industry works and I've come to accept everything with a grain of salt. Of course Chobot is going to do both - she is an aspiring "something" in the industry. Of course the X-play staff is going to get paid to pretend to be interested in a game that is 99.999% likely to blow and in fact blatantly blows during the preview.

Journalistic integrity came about because society demanded it and society doesn't any more. I mean seriously - look at Fox News?

Well, being fair, I've seen Xplay be excited about a game in preview, then hate it in the actual review (Dark Sector comes to mind). That's bad in many ways, but at least it means the reviews themselves are somewhat reliable. Just don't pay attention to them for anything else, I guess.

Arkitext:Is it Chabot with an A or Chobot with an O? Because your heading calls her Chabot and the article calls her Chobot.

Its Chobot.

OT: You're touching upon a wider issue I have with supposed 'games journalism'.

For example, when I think of Ubisoft's DRM and the complaints surrounding it, you think it'd be something a games journalist would actually pursue; a significant matter that's important to a decent chunk of their audience. Yes, they may write up a few opinion pieces, but no one challenges Ubisoft's top brass on it. Its not like an interview with someone on the publisher side of things is impossible to come by and, on the rare occasion someone actually gets to the topic in an interview, they just accept the standard nonsense they drone out and move on the next question.

I mean, let's face it, the reason 'journalists' in that situation don't press it is because they're afraid of losing exclusives and having content pulled from their publications; but all you are then is (free) advertising for the most part.

I remember an interview not too long ago that someone did with id Software, concerning Rage. People accused him of being aggressive simply because he was pushing the developers on the fact that what they were saying stuff about the game (and it was memorised, back-of-the-box PR lines) which did not match up to the experience he'd had playing the game.

Now of course, things do get somewhat muddy when you're always covering products, but its not like there's not a lot of industry-politics, and no one seems to ever push for anything more detailed on that sort of stuff. Its very rare that anyone seems to go beyond the standard press release.

As for Chobot being in the game, let's just say I find it hard to believe that she was picked because she was better than other voice actors who auditioned. I have nothing against her, but... no.

Same, I had no clue who it was, just figured it was some no-name actor that I'd never heard of before. What I wonder is will her character be another Emily Chong (good journalist) or a Khalisah Al-Jilani (Fox news)?

But the article is interesting to think about. I would guess that the whole reason to become a Gaming Journalist is for the love of games. With that in mind, if I were a journalist, I would jump at the opportunity to play a role in one of my favorite game/franchises. Afterwards would I be biased to write a better review of the game, or have the strength to remain objective.

Personally I don't read reviews, so I really don't care who they got to play a part in the game. Honestly, until that other "omg I can't believe it Bioware put that ign chick into ME 3" topic, I had no idea who this girl was, nor did I care.

Is it a conflict of interests? I'd definitely say so. But seeing as how review scores are essentially for people who can't make up their own minds about what they like and what they don't like, I really can't bring myself to care that she's in the game. :P

Once I turned on my 360 and Chobot came up on one 'how to get achievemnets' section. My girlfriend at the time said 'oh look, another pretty girl is trying to convince us she's into games so nerd boys will pay attention to her.' Didn't think much of it at the time.

Now normally I wouldn't mind that she's appearing in the game at all. But because she talks about games and did the prieview for Mass Effect 3 I really don't expect it to get an honest score. As she undoubtably has friends in the industry I expect that they would be more willing to overlook some flaws and want to praise certain aspects because she was involved. This might be true, I'm probably wrong but I'm not really confortable with it.

I swear to the Maker, I had no idea who this woman was until this blew up. She doesn't seem like a journalist to me, just one of those camera chicks they put for videos. She's there to be pretty. At least, it didn't seem that way to me.

I feel like if you were really all that upset about her casting and not going to buy the game because of it, you weren't going to buy the game anyway.

or

If you were really honest-to-Maker expecting ME3 to get anything less than a 9.5 from IGN regardless of whether she was in it of not, then I have a bridge to sell you. It's a nice bridge too. Made of candy.

Jessica Chobot is nobody. She's nothing more than a pretty face hired by IGN to read news bits that they feed to her so that nerdy guys like me will watch them based purely on the fact that she IS a pretty face. I would wager that a minority of people watch her news videos for the actual news that she's talking about. Maybe she's into gaming, maybe she isn't, but she's nothing more than a personality something to ogle as far as her appearances in IGNs videos either way. I don't see this as a conflict of interest, honestly.

Heck, the preview in question is hardly even a preview (unless the preview linked was a summarized version, in which case I'd like to see the full version). ANYONE could have been hired to do the exact same thing that Chobot was doing, and it would have played out exactly the same way, because the so-called "preview" was nothing more than "Hey look, this is how the voice commands work", with some possible behind-the-scenes tampering and/or video editting to make it look smoother than it actually is. All that Chobot's involvement did was give a pretty face to look at in-between shots of gameplay. It was a publicity spot, as far as I'm concerned.

Never heard of her, don't give a shit that she's in the game and...really? We're worried about a conflict of interest with fucking IGN's reviewers now? What, are they going to bump it up from a 9.99 to a 10 on the basis of her involvement?

Any person reviewing the game for IGN or G4 will now know they are crucifying one of their work colleagues if they give her a bad review. That, on some level, has to effect impartiality.

Her role in this is pretty much the same as that of the woman who voiced Kelly Chambers in the second game, I doubt she's going to be in their minds when they're throwing that dart at the numbers 8 through 10.

Chabot, Chobot, whatever. There's only one name that I will use for her.

She is not a journalist, she is not a "personality", and she sure as hell is not a voice-actress. The very fact that she is in the game is insulting on multiple levels. I very much hope that it is possible to avoid recruiting her at all.

I thought she was a presenter rather than a journalist, I seriously doubt she writes or researches anything she says and I bet she rarely touches a controller. Her IGN segments tend to be nothing but hype and advertising.

There is very little journalism in gaming anyway. Everyone is too reliant on exclusives and first reviews to be trusted. You do not see this sort of conflict in say the Independent.

I am highly sceptical of anything I read about gaming as its a nasty, dishonest, incestuous, little business. I read but trust very little of what I read.

Wow, I have always consider Chobot a pretty face to entice lonely nerd gamers into paying attention to G4 and IGN never have I thought she actual knew anything about what she was saying or ever considered her creditable.

To me she is the video game equivalent to the pretty girls that car companies hire to stand next to their cars during trade shows, not to be taken seriously.

Any person reviewing the game for IGN or G4 will now know they are crucifying one of their work colleagues if they give her a bad review. That, on some level, has to effect impartiality.

Her role in this is pretty much the same as that of the woman who voiced Kelly Chambers in the second game, I doubt she's going to be in their minds when they're throwing that dart at the numbers 8 through 10.

I see no reason to hate her there really... she's just a girl who got nervous and said something silly?

bjj hero:I thought she was a presenter rather than a journalist, I seriously doubt she writes or researches anything she says and I bet she rarely touches a controller. Her IGN segments tend to be nothing but hype and advertising.

I follow her twitter and she's actually a very nerdy, very enthusiastic gamer. Always going on about what level she's on, which boss she's fighting, what game she's playing.

Annoying? That's up to you. But she is definitely not a fake when it comes to being a gamer.

I know it's unprofessional, and that games are important and not just for kids etc. But is 'conflict of interest' in bog standard game journalism with a non artistic, non ground breaking subject really a course for outrage? It just seems like a single article on a new game having bias is very unimportant in the grand scheme of things, or really any scheme of things.

Fr]anc[is:I haven't even heard of Chobot prior to this. All I know is that one screenshot of the character is absolutely horrid looking and it seems like they're trying to shove some supposedly well known female gamer down our throats like they did with Felicia Day in DA2.

Ugh, I skipped that DLC for DA2, this is really annoying too, people like this don't really appeal to me, so what if they are gamer girls? I'd prefer a good actor, thank you. Chobot is annoying, now every time this character she is playing speaks I'm going to lose immersion in the game.

VanTesla:My biggest problem is the animated face looks so bad and creepy...

Amen to that. I can deal with Chobot in my Mass Effect, i dont care for her all that much, but she might have a good voice. However, that face.. That ugly looking face.. It sends shivers down my spine whenever i look at it.

Hitchmeister:I'm sorry, did someone interpret that segment as anything other than a promotional puff piece by EA/Bioware?

Well that's the point. As gaming becomes more mainstream, non-enthusiast viewers will have a bit of trouble telling the difference because they're not really initiated into the quirks of videogame journalism.